Each shader layer has a small amount of panels. Compare that to nodes. A cycles production level material nodes is horrible if you open it for the first time. Even BI’s material nodes are very counter productive. Thus very hard to learn.

Mock Up B
There is a problem with that, where is the duplicate/copy shader? How do you rearrange shader? How to rename shader layer? How to switch between 1 group of shaders to another group of shaders as discussed in the podcasts.

Definitions:Material - the outer shell of the shading system.Layer system - a shader stacking system that blends shadersBlend - algorithms to mix 2 or more shadersShader - (NPR shader primitives) the primitive that is stack-able to form more complex color behavior.Shader modifier - also known as a shader primitive modifier, is the parameter to pre-condition a primitives before it is usable.

Blend shader included into shader layer
Shader layer is the shader
So, basically, create new Shader Layer and select Blend from drop down menu
Then it would be, basically ‘Shader Group’ - the Blend shader will be the header, then it contains 2 shader slots…

Still using the layer system but their “blend modes” are different. Some don’t interact with each other. Kinda like modo’s old shader layer system. ie, sky don’t interact with AO, Screen space always on top, etc.

Another part is lighting management. This should be easy, other software have good examples. Should lighting management be in the world tab too?